Victoria!!

Day 34 – Wednesday, August 26th

Up early for a planned 7:00 am departure time. We had to get down to the ferry headed to Victoria early enough to check in or we would lose our reservation. We had a great conversation with the gentleman who was handling the breakfast at the hotel. He told us a bit more of the history of the hotel’s ownership and the owner’s values. The ways the employees are treated certainly creates strong loyalty and commitment to good customer service. Because of the conversation we were a bit late leaving. When he found out the ferry we were scheduled, he shooed us out the door. The drive went relatively smoothly, except for dealing with a traffic jam caused by traffic merging from two directions into one lane. We were a bit nervous but made it to the ferry terminal in our expected window. At least this meant we had less of a wait until loading.

We watched our boat, Spirit of Vancouver Island, come in and disgorge hundreds of cars, trucks, and buses. Then we drove right through the bow of the ship to be loaded on the second vehicle deck. We watched our departure from one of the top decks and then it got a little cold for Patti. Dick spent most of the next 90 minutes at the bow of the boat watching everything he could see. This included the tasks of crew, tree covered islands slipping by, fishing boats returning to their ports, lighthouses, and, at the half-way point, the passage of a sister ship mirroring our ship’s voyage. He kept looking for Orcas or other marine mammals but had to be satisfied with many sea gulls. Patti stayed inside in a comfy chair where it was warm and read. We were both quite happy.

Once we were at Vancouver Island (where Victoria is located) we joined the throngs pouring from the ship. Instant crush of traffic on the four-lane highway. We followed a series of signs, like bread crumbs to the Butchart Gardens, one of Dick’s all time favorite garden places in the world. It deserves its world famous reputation. It was so lovely. Again, we need some new superlative words….A woman had the vision to create a gardens in an abandoned quarry, so it is really a unique setting. She and her husband made a great deal of money in the cement industry over 100 years ago, but they are most famous for creating this really ahead of its time gardens. Roses, Japanese gardens, English gardens, and Italian garden. Everywhere you looked, color and beauty flowed along! www.butchartgardens.com/. We spent several delightful hours there.

Arriving in Victoria, we checked in to our Worldmark timeshare, backing up on the inner harbor. Just one night was available, but that gives us a little more space in a really nice place to stay right downtown. It is a lovely building, with balconies overlooking the water. Yah!

It wasn’t quite ready, so that gave us time to go over to another wonderful museum: The Royal British Columbia Museum. There they were featuring an exhibit of Treasures from the British Museum drawn from countries and cultures around the world. There surely were some very exquisite and amazing pieces that they had on display. Both of us, however, felt quite uneasy about the arrogance that allowed the Brits to come in and confiscate people’s treasures and then put them on display for others to see. Of course, we DO love to see many of these wonderful things, but it is quite an ethical dilemma about whose things are they and who gets to keep them and gets to look at them.

This was brought even more to the forefront when, in the same museum, there was quite a great display of First Nation’s culture. However, some of the cases had notes saying that objects from that display had been removed and given back to the government of the Indian people through a treaty. This treaty was highly comprehensive, having passed in 2000. It did a lot of other Native’s rights things, but, in part, allowed the Indian people to have many things back that belonged to their ancestors.

We both realized after about an hour and a half that we were finally on information overload. Even the highly committed cultural explorers finally run out of gas in terms of taking in new information. We skimmed through a number of other great exhibits, but had confirmed that it is truly time to be heading back home. We are full!!!

Dinner was excellent seafood, with a focus on salmon, eaten at an outdoor restaurant right on the quay along the harbor. The boats were a mere feet from our table. We enjoyed the fresh air, quite warm temperatures, good food, and outdoor music provided by street musicians on the harbor walkway. Then we strolled for a bit, including walking by the Provicial Parliment Building, before returning to the timeshare, a bit of unpacking, a load of laundry, a soak in the hot tub….Dick also went to deal with a flat tire from a nasty nail puncture. We have had SUCH great luck with our car this whole trip. Hang in there! Just another 24 hours of driving to go to get back home.

We had only one full day in Victoria, but it was a great one.